Fall Semester 2017 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

How many degrees of separation are there between Oedipus and Veronica Mars? This graduate seminar explores the genre of detective fiction, both its history and its theory, in both literature and film. We will read primarily British and American fiction, although we will begin in ancient Greece and head toward France and Argentina. The main goal of the course is to trace the evolution of the genre across a range of authors, forms, and contexts: Sophocles, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Carolyn Keene, Jorge Luis Borges, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Patricia Highsmith, and Paul Auster. We will also watch detectives ply their trade at the movies and on television, in both adapted and original stories, from Bogart to Marge Gunderson. Our overarching goal is to develop ideas—and, eventually, theories—about the genre’s underlying symbolic structure and recurring effects.

This course concentrates on the poetry of four major American poets: Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and May Swenson. The word “Dissent” that appears in the course title puns on the interplay of “dissent” and “descent” so central to the critical and scholarly practice of positioning each poet within an American female poetic tradition, or line of descent, while simultaneously arguing that each one in her own way rebels or dissents from that tradition. As a consequence, the class will examine key features of a poetic tradition that may be traced as far back Anne Bradstreet at the same time that we identify the manner in which each poet challenges that tradition. Doing so will require that we tease out the ways in which each poet reflects and subverts prevailing cultural norms. In the final weeks of the semester, we will pay special attention to Swenson’s contributions and departures from this tradition in an effort to assess her importance. The culminating project for the course will be the development of individual displays or exhibits linking Swenson to one or more of these American women poets. Students will also complete ten-page research papers to accompany their exhibits. The exhibits will be displayed in Merrill-Cazier Library and other locations around campus.

ENGL 6700: Folklore Theory and Methods

Tuesdays, 4:30-7:00 pm

McNeill, L

This course will introduce students to the field of academic folklore studies. We will cover major genres of folklore, the history of the discipline, theories and approaches, and dominant themes. Many students find folklore studies to be a surprisingly contemporary and relatable field, one that can pair well with other areas of interest such as literature, history, and anthropology. Students will have the opportunity to pursue folkloristic research into their own topics of choice, all while exploring this unique (and fun!) field of study.

ENGL 6740: Folk Narrative (Subtitle: The Fairy Tale)

Wednesdays, 4:30-7:00 pm

Schwabe, C

Although this course will touch on all of the principal narrative genres in folk tradition, its main focus will be on the fairy tale. Why do fairy tales appear in almost every culture across the globe and why are they so popular? Undoubtedly because they encapsulate in (usually) succinct form many of the most pressing concerns of human existence: family conflict, the struggle for survival, sexual desire, the quest for happiness, among many others. This course explores why writers and readers have been attracted to the fairy-tale form through a study of its key elements and its uses in adult and children’s literature, book illustration, film, television, and the Internet. Special attention will be given to the German Children’s and Household Tales, along with French, Italian, Danish, English, and selected non-Western fairy tales. Works of contemporary mainstream scholars, such as Jack Zipes, Maria Tatar, Donald Haase, and Maria Warner, and various critical lenses will be applied to the tales to reveal multiple methods of analyzing the texts. Students can expect to read and analyze some of the most popular fairy tales from each of the major collections in Western Europe, augmented by postmodern retellings and adaptations in literature and the media.

ENGL 6800/7800Theory and Practice of Online Education (PhD students sign up for 7800 and will also meet face-to-face once a week)

Online (MTC), Hybrid (PHD)

Grant-Davie, K.

What range of forms can online writing instruction take, and what range of students does it serve? How do instructors need to change their roles and adapt their material and teaching methods as they move from face-to-face instruction to online instruction? What are the best practices for managing online classes and discussion forums effectively and efficiently? What learning theories underlie those best practices? What can instructors do to create presence and build community in their online classes? How are technologies being used in online writing instruction? What options do instructors have for responding to student work and assessing it in online classes? What should instructors know about issues of ownership and plagiarism in online classes?

In addition to meeting online with ENGL 6800 students, students in 7800 will also meet in person for one hour each week on the Logan campus. Students in 6800 are welcome to sit in on those meetings if they choose. The class will require just one text: Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R.-M. (2016). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Additional readings will be posted online.

ENGL 6820Practicum in Teaching English

TR, 10:30-1:15 pm

Dethier, B

This course is designed specifically for graduate instructors teaching English 1010. It focuses on the theory and practice of teaching writing but also prepares graduate instructors for further teaching responsibilities. We schedule it for two class periods, but the second period is usually reserved for outside speakers and special presentations. Participants complete some of the English 1010 assignments as well as a final synthesis paper, and they share some of their best ideas in a half-hour presentation to the class. Required of all new English graduate instructors and must be taken with the pre-semester Orientation.

ENGL 6884: Creative Nonfiction Workshop

Mondays, 4:30-7:00

Sinor, J.

This graduate course is primarily a creative writing workshop focused on making and responding to literary art. A background in creative writing is not required but recommended. This fall, we will be focusing on non-linear form, specifically the braided essay. Students will spend the semester studying the braided form—essays that move between three strands (a research strand, a site visit, and a personal strand) and that are bound by metaphor or image. They will write a twenty-plus-page braided essay. In this class, students will be introduced to archival work, the use of primary and secondary source materials in creative writing, living research, scene reconstruction, and creating characters out of real and historical figures. Site visits are required, as is extensive interviewing. The result—a complex woven piece that pursues a difficult question in a unique and compelling way—is one of the most engaging and popular forms of literary nonfiction being written today.

ENGL 7000: Advanced Research Methods

Online

Moeller, R

This course is designed to survey major methods for conducting research in English across academic and nonacademic settings, covering the following topics:

generating research questions;

selecting a research design;

reviewing the most relevant literature;

applying theoretical models; and

understanding validity, reliability, and generalizability.

We will study qualitative methods (ethnographies, fieldwork, and case studies), quantitative methods (surveys, experiments, and simple statistical analyses), and mixed methods approaches to research and apply each to a problem that you identify in your area/field.

Upon completing this course, you should be able to

formulate effective research questions;

design valid and reliable research studies that will generate data addressing your research questions;

understand the differences between qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches to research and know which methods best support which types of research questions;

use evidence gained from pilot studies to support research proposals; and

describe the landscape of current research in your field.

Summer Semester 2017 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

This one-week course will run as the Bennion Teachers’ Workshop. The workshop is titled Protest Literature: Civil Rights, Democracy and Social Justice. Our study will begin with Civil Rights Era literature, but workshop participants can examine any site of protest literature in their individual projects. Launching our exploration of the relationship between protest literature and social activism, keynote speaker Dr. Margaret Whitt will engage workshop participants in conversations about literature from her book, Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement. Participants will consider how protest literature from the Civil Rights Movement can shape our lives as teachers, readers, writers, and

citizens. Throughout the week, USU scholars from multiple disciplines will lead sessions focusing on a range of protest texts—including poetry, graphic novels, art, historical objects, music, drama, and film—to help us examine contemporary understandings of protest literature. With a spotlight on bringing the workshop experience to the classroom, the workshop leaders will facilitate coursework with practical application for teachers. Please see brochure for additional details, and feel free to contact Jessica Rivera-Mueller for further information (jessica.riveramueller@usu.edu).

Tuition Scholarships for the Bennion (ENGL 6890, Summer): Scholarships in the amount of $750 towards tuition and fees are available for graduate students enrolling for academic credit. Scholarship funds are limited, so please apply early. Email the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at mwc@usu.edu or call 435-797-0299 for scholarship applications.

ENGL 6810: Introduction to Composition Studies

Monday-Friday, 8:00-am 5:00 pm(July 31-August 4)

Rivera-Mueller, J.

This introduction to composition studies course is focused on teacher-inquiry. The workshop is designed to help you study your work as a writing teacher and deepen your understanding of Composition Studies. As a participant in the workshop, you will have the opportunity to develop a scholarly project that addresses one of your most pressing questions about learning to write or learning to teach writing. Throughout the workshop, we will examine foundational and contemporary composition scholarship to support the development of these projects. This course is a great fit for people who care about writing pedagogy and would like a context to study a particular aspect of their teaching. Please feel free to contact Jessica Rivera-Mueller for further information (jessica.riveramueller@usu.edu).

ENGL/HIST 6750: Field School for Cultural Documentation

TriangleX Ranch, Grand Teton National Park

July 30-Aug. 12, 2017

Gabbert, L.

Overview: The 2017 Field School for Cultural Documentation is a collaboration between the University of Wyoming, Utah State University, and the Library of Congress. It is an intensive, multi-week, residential workshop designed to provide participants with basic ethnographic fieldwork skills, including participant observation, interviewing, the writing of field notes, ethics, and archiving best practices. Students will work collaboratively on a designated project with nationally known faculty from the American Folklife Center, the University of Wyoming’s American Studies Program, and Utah State University’s Folklore Program and Special Collections and Archives.

Project: Participants will interview and document the traditions of owners, guests, and workers of the historic TriangleX dude ranch (http://trianglex.com), near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and located inside Grand Teton National Park. Folklorist Andrea Graham, of the University of Wyoming, who has spent much of her career working with ranching communities, will lead the project. Participants should commit to at least three weeks. Two weeks will be spent in residence in Grand Teton National Park taking classes and conducting fieldwork, and another week or so at home will be spent processing materials and writing final reports.

Audience: The Field School for Cultural Documentation is designed for anyone with an interest in learning basic ethnographic skills. Students, community scholars, and the general public are encouraged to apply.

Room and Board: The field school will be held from July 30-Aug. 12, 2017 in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Participants will be housed at the University of Wyoming’s AMK Ranch (https://www.nps.gov/grte/learn/historyculture/amk.htm), which is located inside the park. This is a bunkhouse-style sleeping quarters with a communal kitchen and shared bathrooms. Participants are required to be in residence for the duration of the field school, but may find alternate room and board at their own expense. Participants are responsible for their own transportation to and from Grand Teton National Park.

Funding opportunities: Room and board at the AMK ranch likely will be covered. Additional scholarship monies are available for all USU students to help offset transportation and other costs. Additional forms of assistance for USU students, such as summer tuition waivers, may become available as the spring semester develops.

Spring Semester 2017 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

ENGL 6340British Literature and Culture: The Persistent Eighteenth Century

Wednesday, 4:30-7:00 pm

Burkert, M.

In this course, we’ll explore how our 21st-century world is haunted by the legacies of the long 18th century (1660-1800)—from distinctively modern forms of scientific inquiry, individual rights, and representative governments, to party politics, finance capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. We will read texts from the period in conversation with more recent adaptations and responses that grapple with our ambivalent relationship to the past. Readings include John Gay’s crime musical The Beggar’s Opera (1728) alongside Bertolt Brecht’s anti-capitalist satire, The Threepenny Opera (1928); Aphra Behn’s anti-slavery novella Oroonoko (1688) and its many adaptations for the stage from 1696 to 1999; Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) paired with J. M. Coetzee’s postcolonial reimagining, Foe (1986); Margaret Cavendish’s proto-science fiction The Blazing World (1666) in conversation with Neal Stephenson’s speculative historical novel about England’s scientific revolution, Quicksilver (2003); and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway hit Hamilton. The final course project will be a digital exhibition that blends historical research with analysis of primary sources from library databases and Special Collections.

ENGL 6350American Literature and Culture: Crime and Punishment in American Literature and CultureThursday, 4:30-7:00 pm

Shively, S.

This course will be a multi-genre study of selected works of American literature on the topic of crime and punishment. Texts will include Herman Melville’s classic novel Billy Budd, Richard Wright’s frightening and influential Native Son, Ernest J. Gaines’s novel A Lesson Before Dying, Truman Capote’s innovative journalistic book In Cold Blood, an anthology of prison writing, young adult literature by Walter Dean Myers, and the contemporary memoir Orange is the New Black, by Piper Kerman. While the course will be grounded in literature, we will incorporate aspects of American Studies including diverse source materials (music, correspondence, visual images, media) as well as interdisciplinary aspects of the topic (psychology, race, gender, sexuality, sociology, folklore, religion, history, law).

ENGL 6400/7400 Advanced Editing(PhD students sign up for 7400 and will also meet face-to-face once a week)

Online/Hybrid

Grant-Davie, K.

If you receive an advanced degree from this department, you will almost certainly need editing skills, no matter what you do next. This course is your chance to learn those skills or, if you already have editing experience, to sharpen and refine them by reevaluating your editing practices and how you justify them. (Teaching this course has improved my own writing.) We will practice and discuss many aspects of editing—from crafting language at the sentence level to shaping whole documents for rhetorical effect, organization and content, graphics, and document design. You will learn how to reread your writing productively and how to expand or condense it as needed.

The course is designed mainly for students in the online Master of Technical Communication program and for doctoral students in the Theory & Practice of Professional Communication program. The course materials will be biased towards tech/professional communication. Students from literary studies, creative writing, American studies, or folklore are very welcome to take the course and should find it quite helpful. However, we will not address editing skills that are specific to creative writing, e.g., editing fiction for narrative pacing or plot development—skills that are better developed in an ENGL 6880 creative writing workshop course.

All students in ENGL 6400 and 7400 will meet online. Students in 7400 will also meet in person on the Logan campus each week, and students in 6400 are welcome to sit in on those meetings if they choose.

This course examines intersections between folklore and landscape. How does folklore “vivify” landscape? We begin with cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s well-known distinction between “space” as empty and “place” as full of meaning and then examine how various kinds of folklore, such as stories, place names, festival, and material culture create local place-based meanings. As we move through the semester, we also will interrogate how local meanings are contested. Topics include Native American perspectives, tourism, and migration. A field trip or two also is likely in order. Students may either conduct a library or fieldwork based research project.

Books:

Legendary Hawaii and the Politics of Place: Tradition, Translation, and Tourism

Where Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places

Winter Carnival in a Western Town: Identity, Change, and the Good of the Community

Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache

Tahiti beyond the Postcard: Power, Place, and Everyday Life

Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico

This course will cover the topics of folk art and folk material culture, defined quite broadly. We will consider a wide range of materials: from traditional art to refrigerator magnets, from roadside shrines to cosplay. The physical manifestations of our informal creative expressions surround us—in this class we’ll learn to see things we normally overlook, and find artistry in unexpected places. As a class we’ll take numerous small-scale field trips to sites in and around campus, seeking to engage the material world in person, as well as in theory.

Please note that students in the Folklore program may only take this class if they are registered for the other two seminars (ENGL 6770 and ENGL 6710).

ENGL/HIST 6770 Seminar in Folklore and Folklife: Legend and the Supernatural

Tuesday, 1:30-4:15 pm

Thomas, J.

This course explores supernatural legends and belief narratives. We will explore them from cultural, popular, historical, and folkloric perspectives. Topics include:

-Legends, such as the local St. Ann’s Retreat stories, and scholarly approaches to them

-Zombies and the movies

-Hauntings and “hag ridings”

-Witches in tourism and everyday life

-Vampires, forensic pathology, and fans

-Marie Laveau and nineteenth-century New Orleans voodoo

Media treatments of UFOs, NDEs, and the paranormal

Note that 6770 is repeatable for credit when taught on a different topic.

ENGL 6860/7860Teaching Technical Communication(PhD students sign up for 7860 and will also meet face-to-face once a week)

Online

Walton, R.

This course will prepare you to design and teach classes in technical and professional communication (TPC). If you are a professional working in industry, this course will equip you to teach courses in two-year colleges, opening new paths for applying and expanding your experience in the field. If you are intending to pursue a doctorate in TPC or a related field, this course will equip you to begin your doctoral studies ready to teach classes in your own field. If you are a graduate student in folklore, literature and writing, or American studies, this course will expand the range of courses you can teach, equipping you with a foundational understanding of the TPC field and providing an environment in which you can confidently develop requisite materials such as a syllabus and course design. If you are a secondary education teacher, this course will not only prepare you for college-level teaching but also allow you to select readings, design assignments, and develop activities that could allow you to bring TPC education into your high school classroom.

You will build a foundation of knowledge and materials to draw upon by 1) reading and reflecting upon theories and research relevant to pedagogy, 2) analyzing others' teaching materials, 3) crafting a statement of teaching philosophy to make explicit your approach to pedagogy, and 4) applying that philosophy in the design of materials such as a syllabus and course design. Thus, you will engage deeply with theory and develop practical skills, engaging with material relevant to teaching in general and to TPC pedagogy in particular.

All students in ENGL 6860 and 7860 will meet online. Students in 7860 will also meet in person on the Logan campus each week, and students in 6860 are welcome to sit in on those meetings if they choose.

ENGL 6883 Poetry Writing Workshop

Monday, 4:30-7:00 pm

Gunsberg, B.

This graduate-level course is designed to help you become better writers and readers of poetry. We will focus our attention on student work as well as poetry written by emerging and established authors. Our conversations will revolve around craft, which means we will explore those time-tested techniques that guide and strengthen poets’ efforts. This approach begins with close attention to the language that moves us and, moreover, careful consideration of why it moves us. Class discussion and readings will be supplemented by your efforts to develop a personal aesthetic, one that broadens your understanding of published poetry and enlivens your responses to your classmates’ work. In addition to writing and revising individual poems, you will assemble a final portfolio consisting of your most successful writing.

Required texts:

- A Poet's Handbook, Mary Oliver

- Best American Poetry, 2016, David Lehman and Edward Hirsch

-Instant Winner, Carrie Fountain

-Selected essays from Tony Hoagland, Louise Gluck, and Stephen Dunn

Fall Semester 2016 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

When you hear the words “fantasy literature,” what do you think of? Orcs and wizards, alternative worlds, magic and dragons? How did this strange and wonderful genre develop, and where is it headed? In this class, we’ll consider the “forefathers” of the genre, the medievalists J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, with an eye toward how the genre has grown in the last sixty years. How does the atheist Philip Pullman rewrite the Christian narratives of Tolkien and Lewis? How has the Jamaican author Nalo Hopkinson pioneered the new genre of “Urban Fantasy”? What does contemporary children’s fantasy literature have to offer? We’ll consider how fantasy’s other worlds actually explore this world’s pressing questions of religion, gender, race, class, and disability. We’ll also consider the cross-over between fantasy and other forms of speculative fiction. Readings include The Fellowship of the Ring (J.R.R. Tolkien), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling), The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman), Sister Mine (Nalo Hopkinson), Sisters Grimm (Michael Buckley).

Please note that this is a cross-listed class; there are four graduate seats open in a senior seminar (ENGL 5300), which allows for 21 undergraduates. Grads will attend Tu/Th class with the undergraduates, and you will also meet for one hour outside of class/week, where we will discuss extra primary and secondary readings. Grads will also be expected to give presentations and lead class discussion several times, as well as write a 20-page seminar paper.

ENGL 6350/6440/7440American Literature and Culture: The Literature and Culture of the American Farm -Cross-listed with ENGL 6440/7440: Studies in Culture and Professional Communication

Funda, E.

Thomas Jefferson called farmers “the chosen people of God” and claimed that they were inherently virtuous, the best citizens for the new republic. Even if we think Jefferson’s claims exaggerated, there’s no denying that the American imagination has endowed farming with profound and enduring symbolic significance. This course is based on the theory that no other occupation —with perhaps the exception of motherhood—so fully spans the imaginative range of human experience or is so profoundly invested with symbolic significance in our culture, even by those who have never worked or lived on a farm. Thus, farming is a kind of imaginative shopping cart into which we carry around a whole host of rather romanticized ideas, expectations, and beliefs. It is a shimmering ideal and a cardinal experience, one that has been endowed with meaning deeper than merely placing seed into soil. Understanding how our culture continues to mythologize the American Farm— even as farm history is fraught with significant controversies and tensions—can offer insights into everything from public policy to the popularity of country music to current “back to the land” & “local food” movements. Therefore, this interdisciplinary course will examine the story of the American farm in literature, history, mythology, art, film, folklore, music, and popular culture in order to consider how and why our culture idealizes rural landscape and lifestyle so fully, even in our increasingly urban nation.

ENGL 6410/7410 (Online)Theory and Research in Professional and Technical Communication(PhD students sign up for 7410 and will also meet face to face once a week)

Walton, R.

Course Description: ENGL 6410/7410 is designed to welcome graduate students across the English Department. Whether you're curious about the field of Technical Communication and Rhetoric specifically or just want to learn how to assess a field by its scholarship, this online course is for you.ENGL 6410 will help you to develop a foundational understanding of Technical Communication and Rhetoric as a field:- Major theories underlying the scholarship, such as rhetorical theory and new materialism- Major research topics explored through this scholarship, from social justice to workplace writing genres- Tensions and concerns at the heart of the field, especially relationships between industry and academia

In this course, you'll also develop scholarly skills applicable across majors:- How to trace scholarly conversations across the publications of a field- How to recognize topics of recent and growing interest (i.e., promising topics for your own scholarship to advance the field)- How to visually represent an academic field- How to craft a literature review (a central component of research publications and presentations)

HIST 6600American Studies Theory and MethodsNote that this class is open to all American Studies and English students. American Studies students must take this class.

Grieve, V.

Course Description: This class will teach students how American Studies scholars think, argue, research, and write. Students will trace the changing definition of American Studies as a field, from the "myth and symbol" school to projects spanning both American continents. They will study their field's relationship to twentieth-century social movements and related theoretical categories, including cultural studies, and class; feminism, gender, and sexuality; and anti-colonialism, post-colonialism, race, and ethnicity. American Studies is an interdisciplinary field that investigates American culture and society in all their complexity. Building on a foundation of history and institutions, literature and the arts, and race and ethnicity, the students in this class will bring a range of disciplinary approaches to bear on their efforts to analyze and interpret America's past and present.

ENGL 6700Folklore Theory and Methods

Gabbert, L.

This is a graduate level survey course largely organized around a “keywords” approach to the discipline. A “keywords” approach means that we will learn about the field in terms of concepts and organizing ideas that are important in understanding both the history of folklore studies and its contemporary manifestations. We will spend some time on the intellectual origins the discipline and its evolution, but we also will read a number of recently published books in order to see which foundational ideas still have purchase today and why. The aim of the course is to offer beginning graduate students some literacy in bibliographical, theoretical, and methodological fields of knowledge over which folklorists should have solid control. Finally we will review the use of scholarly tools such as journals, indices, bibliographies, and archival resources that will be useful in the formulation of a solid research program.

This course will offer an in-depth consideration of a rapidly emerging area of folklore studies: folklore and digital culture. It explores the ways in which we can understand folklore in a digital context, the kinds of folklore we find in digital settings, the kinds of folk groups we find through the use of communication technologies, how fieldwork changes in an online environment, and the ways humans make meaning in diverse technological contexts. The Internet is a really cool, really weird place. Brace yourselves.

ENGL 6820Teaching PracticumThis class is mandatory for all new Graduate Instructors.

Dethier, B.

This course is designed specifically for graduate instructors teaching English 1010. It focuses on the theory and practice of teaching writing but also prepares graduate instructors for further teaching responsibilities. We schedule it for two class periods, but the second period is usually reserved for outside speakers and special presentations. Participants complete some of the English 1010 assignments as well as a final synthesis paper, and they share some of their best ideas in a half-hour presentation to the class. Required of all new graduate instructors.

ENGL 6882 Graduate Fiction Writing Workshop

Waugh, C.

The graduate fiction writing workshop will explore a variety of contemporary fiction, and give students the opportunity to share their own stories with others and to receive feedback. Since we will have a variety of levels of proficiency in the class, we’ll approach craft from a pedagogical point of view that should be useful to everyone, including those who might one day like to teach fiction writing as well as those who just want to write better fiction. We’ll also investigate how contemporary literary fiction has coopted elements from genres such as YA, sci-fi, fantasy, detective, etc.

ENGL 6830/7830 (Online)Rhetorical Theory(PhD students sign up for 7830 and will also meet face to face once a week)

Moeller, R.

Rhetoric means a number of things these days; most commonly, it means “empty speech” or “the inability to act.” However, in this course, we will study rhetoric as the persuasive means that call an individual or community to action by asking the following questions:- What does it take to change someone’s mind (metanoia)?- What must the circumstances be to facilitate this change (kairos)?- What is the interaction between the call to action, the circumstances surrounding the call, and the individual whose mind is changed (rhetoric)?

In order to answer these questions, we will investigate the computer game industry via rhetorical theory. The computer game industry is one of the leading catalysts of change in our culture: it drives innovation across technological, economic, consumer, and cultural sectors. It has become a multi-billion dollar industry, and it has surpassed the film industry in gross sales and influence. Yet, at its most basic level, it relies upon rhetoric to get you to buy a game and/or a gaming platform, and it relies upon rhetoric to get you to move a game piece; play a card; or push a button on a keyboard, controller, or mobile device in order to advance the gameplay of whatever game you are playing. At more advanced levels, we will study how game design—often in non-verbal, procedural ways—induces us to accept certain assumptions, value judgments, relationships, and actions as appropriate and others as not, thereby influencing the world views of a generation of gamers. This is what McAllister calls the mass culture force of computer games. The class will teach you to notice and critique the rhetoric of games. You will learn to ask how a game supposes you—as a player—should think about other people and values and choices and decide whether you can accept those suppositions. For example, do you want to embrace the persona the game encourages you to embrace? Are your values and identity represented by the game and the player character, or are you forced to adopt alternative values and identifications as you play the game? What lasting effects do these rhetorical devices have on you as a player? on your gameplay?

In this course, you will be required to play, read about, and think about games and rhetorical theory. Readings will include scholarship on rhetorical theory and the rhetoric of games and a novel. No prior experience with gaming or rhetoric is necessary. You should be prepared to access and play at least one game for the entire semester. You will be assessed in class discussions and activities, several short papers, and a longer final paper.

Spring Semester 2016 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

ENGL 6350British Literature and Culture

Cooper-Rompato, C.

This course focuses on Geoffrey Chaucer, “the Father of the English language,” and his amazing fourteenth-century experiment in English, the Canterbury Tales. We will read a number of the tales in Middle English and explore contemporary scholarship on them. We will encounter talking chickens, a flying mechanical horse, a giant with two heads, lovers in a pear tree, a “nether” kiss… yes, the Canterbury Tales has it all! Along the way we will also learn quite a bit about late medieval English history and culture. Course work includes presentations and a seminar paper. Required Text: Riverside Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (used copies available used from Amazon quite inexpensively). No previous experience with medieval literature and/or Middle English necessary. All are welcome!

ENGL 6350American Literature and CultureBeat Culture: On the Page and in the Arhcive

Crumbley, P.

This course is dedicated the study of Beat literature, with a special emphasis on Beat poetry. Students in the course will study the major literary works that contributed to the Beat movement and develop projects using materials contained in the Beat Collection archived in USU Special Collections. This is a vast collection of small magazines, experimental publications, broadsides, limited-edition books, and Beat scholarship. The course will begin by looking at the Beat Collection and considering strategies for making use of it. Members of the class will then dedicate the next five weeks to reading a brief introduction to Beat culture, Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, and a sampling of works by other major Beat writers. The next five weeks will be spent selecting materials from the Beat Collection that will become the basis for a curated exhibit at Merrill-Cazier Library and a final paper. The final five weeks will be dedicated to the exhibit and the paper.

ENGL 6400/7400 (Online)Advanced Editing (PhD students sign up for 7400 & will also meet face to face once a week)

Grant-Davie, K.

If you receive an advanced degree from this department, you will almost certainly need editing skills, no matter what you do next. This course is your chance to learn those skills or, if you already have editing experience, to sharpen and refine them. It will help you reevaluate your editing practices and how you justify them. We will practice and discuss many aspects of editing—from crafting language at the sentence level on up to shaping whole documents for rhetorical effect, organization and content, graphics, and document design. You will learn how to reread your writing productively and how to expand or condense it as needed.

The course is designed mainly for students in the online Master of Technical Communication program and for doctoral students in the Theory & Practice of Professional Communication program. The course materials will be biased towards tech/professional communication. Students from literary studies, creative writing, American Studies, or folklore are very welcome to take the course and should find it quite helpful. However, we will not address editing skills that are specific to creative writing, e.g., editing fiction for narrative pacing or plot development—skills that are better developed in an ENGL 6880 creative writing workshop course.

All students in ENGL 6400 and 7400 will meet online. Students in 7400 will also meet in person on the Logan campus each week, and students in 6400 are welcome to sit in on those meetings if they choose.

ENGL 6440/7440Advanced Seminar in Cultural and Professional CommunicationMaterialism>Remediation>Networks: How critical cultural theory (re)mediates communication(PhD students sign up for 7450 and will meet face to face once a week)

Online and Hybrid

Moeller, R.

In this Advanced Seminar in Culture and Professional Communication, we will study critical cultural theory for what it has to say about the ways we communicate and study communication across a variety of genres, technologies (media), and sites. We will begin with Benjamin’s seminal article, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936), continue discussing materialist theory and play theory, and end with a comparison of Actor-Network Theory and Activity Theory by way of Spinuzzi’s Network (2010). Doctoral students will be exposed to a number of primary readings (Foucault and Deleuze & Guattari) and theories (materialism, remediation, network theory) that have demonstrated a lasting and profound impact on the fields of technical communication and rhetoric. Many of these readings will be appropriate for your Comprehensive Exams and Dissertations. Master’s students will be exposed to a number of theoretical texts that will inform your analyses of cultural artifacts, including Literature and Digital Media. Several former Master’s students have reported that this course has prepared them well for their work in PhD programs across the country.

Students will be responsible for weekly readings and discussions, including regular blog posts, Tweets, and wiki updates as well as a final seminar project that applies course materials and readings to their research sites.

ENGL 6450/7450 (Online)Reading Theory and Document DesignUsing Publication Software to Design and Develop Documents(PhD students sign up for 7450 and will meet face to face once a week)

Hailey, D.

This is a seminar in document design using visual art, video, animation, and simulations. While the class will spend time discussing traditional document design and publication process, it will spend more time examining Information Architecture and Content Design and Management.

ENGL 6460/7460Studies in Digital Media(PhD students sign up for 7450 and will meet face to face once a week)

Hailey, D.

This class will examine digital media as a large topic. Students will be introduced to • History of publication in general. • History of digital publication. • Generalized overview of digital publication. • Overview of specifics in digital publication. • And overview of genres in digital publication.

ENGL/HIST 6720Folklore Fieldwork

Gabbert, L.

This course covers the basic skills needed to conduct beginning graduate-level fieldwork. Students will obtain hands-on experience with recording equipment, including cameras and digital recording kits. We will cover a variety of techniques and methods, including observation, participant-observation, and interviewing, as well as the recording of fieldnotes. In addition, we will cover fieldwork ethics and theorize the problems of IRB (Institutional Review Board/Human Subjects). Finally, we also will read several works that utilize fieldwork as a primary research tool. Students are required to complete a series of fieldwork assignments as well as a final paper.

Texts:Cashman, Ray. 2011. Storytelling on the Northern Irish Border: Characters and Community. Indiana University Press.Dorst, John D. 1989. The Written Suburb: An American Site, An Ethnographic Dilemma. University of Pennsylvania Press.Magliocco, Sabina. 2004. Witching Culture: Folklore and Neopaganism in America. University of Pennsylvania Press.Underberg, Natalie. 2013. Digital Ethnography: Anthropology, Narrative, and New Media. University of Texas Press.

ENGL 6770Folklore SeminarFolklore and the Bible

Siporin, S.

What many consider the most important book in the world, the Bible, is also one of the world’s richest compilations of folklore. The Bible contains “remnants of myths, of stories accounting for the origin of human customs and place-names, of family sagas, tribal legends, national epic, royal history, wisdom or morality tales, prophetic calls and missions, satires, parables, archival histories, and cultic stories.” Our task will be to explore what a folkloric perspective on the Bible can add to our understanding of its meaning.

Texts:• The Bible, any edition.• Alan Dundes, Oral Lit as Holy Writ: The Bible as Folklore• Susan Niditch, Folklore and the Hebrew Bible• Robert Pinsky, The Life of David• David Grossman, Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson

ENGL 6800/7800 Theory and Practice of Online Education in Writing(PhD students sign up for 7800 and will also meet face to face once a week)

Online and Hybrid

Grant-Davie, K.

If you’re planning a career in academia, it’s quite likely that at some point you will be assigned or given the opportunity to teach online. This course gives you the training to meet that challenge confidently. I have been teaching online since 2003 and have co-edited two books on the subject of online education in technical communication. We will read the more recent of the two as well as a selection of scholarly articles about online education. Your written assignments will lead you to raise and try to answer your own questions about online writing instruction (OWI) in settings ranging from K–12 to post-secondary to corporate training—depending on your background, needs, and interests. The class will be taught online, so it will offer you the opportunity to learn about online education experientially. These are some of the main questions that will drive the class:

What range of forms can online education take, and what range of students does it serve?What is causing the spread of online education?How do instructors need to change their roles and adapt their material and teaching methods as they move from face-to-face instruction to online instruction?What are the best practices for managing online classes and discussion forums effectively and efficiently?What learning theories underlie those best practices?What can instructors do to create presence and build community in their online classes?How are technologies being used in online education?What options do instructors have for responding to student work and assessing it in online classes?What should instructors know about issues of ownership and plagiarism in online classes?What issues face instructors who not only teach online but also administer online writing programs?

Students in 7400 will also read this text:● Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2011). The excellent online instructor: Strategies for professional development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

ENGL 6810Introduction to Composition Studies

Kinkead, J.

This course focuses on the scholarship of writing studies. Students become acquainted with scholars, forums, themes, and methods of the field. We will also be engaging in hands-on work, developing research projects that can come to fruition by semester’s end. In previous classes, students' projects have been professionally presented or published. Another goal is to review writing studies programs evident across the nation as well as the writing about writing movement. Additionally, we will discuss the undergraduate research imperative and its integration in writing studies and how as teachers we can work with students on research in writing studies. Teaching composition, naturally, will also be a discussion topic. In sum, the seminar addresses both theory and practice coupled with pragmatic information about the field (e.g., professional organizations, conferences, and journals.

ENGL 6883Poetry Writing Workshop

Gunsberg, B.

This graduate-level course is designed to help you become better writers and readers of poetry by exposing you to a wide range of poetry written by your peers and by established authors. I’m pleased to report that a number of the published poets we will read have agreed to join us via Skype for our discussion of their books. Our conversations will revolve around craft, which means we will explore time-honored categories and techniques as well as more recent developments in the field. Similar to other “workshop” courses, this course offers many opportunities for you to share your work in small and large groups. You are expected to comment generously on your classmates’ poems both in writing and during class discussion. In this way, you will cultivate a personal aesthetic and expand the breadth of your critical vocabulary. Beyond writing and revising individual poems on a weekly basis, you will give a short presentation, and assemble a final portfolio consisting of your most successful writing. Because this is a graduate course, I expect you to submit 3-5 of these poems to a literary journal before the conclusion of the semester.

Fall Semester 2015 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

This course will explore 19th- and 20th-century feminist writers and artists who focus on domestic women’s arts such as quilting, gardening, cooking as valuable modes of self-expression and communication. We will read works by Sarah Orne Jewett, Dorothy Canfield (Fisher), Eliza Calvert Hall, Faith Ringgold, Alice Walker, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. We will also read many works by Mary Wilkins Freeman and Emily Dickinson, readily available online. Readings will also include theoretical works by Alice Walker, Bettina Apheker, Adrienne Rich, Virginia Woolf, Elaine Showalter, Elaine Hedges, and myself, as well as poems, stories, and essays by many other women. Visual artists include quiltmakers, sampler embroiderers, hair wreath makers, Edmonia Lewis, Lilly Martin Spencer, Mary Hallock Foote, Mary Cassatt, Cecelia Beaux, Georgia O’Keeffe, Judy Chicago, and Faith Ringgold. Requirement will include discussion leading, a few very short essays to share with classmates, a long seminar paper. I am very flexible about genres: memoir, personal essay, story quilts, etc. Everyone will be required to make a quilt square as well. This class will require a number of handouts as well as specific editions of texts; please get the proper editions but several of these are available used and inexpensive online. Contact Dr. Graulich directly at melody.graulich@usu.edu for the booklist.

ENGL 6360World Literature and Culture: Magical Realizm in World Fiction

Graham, S.

In the mode of writing known as "magical realism," fantastic or supernatural elements are introduced into a story, only to become an accepted and mundane part of the social world of the fiction. We will explore first the origins of magical realist fiction, and then the ways in which the mode of magical realism has been put to use by English-language writers from Africa and South Asia. Our reading list will include the following novels: Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude; Isabel Allende, Eva Luna; Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children; Zakes Mda, The Heart of Redness; and Helen Oyeyemi, White is for Witching. We will read short stories and essays by Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Alejo Carpentier, Julio Cortázar, Amos Tutuola, and Ben Okri. And we will encounter critical and theoretical essays from the reader Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community and elsewhere.

Among the questions we will try to answer this semester: How does magical realism respond to, mimic, or depart from naturalism and social realism? What is the relationship between magical realism and Modernism, Postmodernism, and postcoloniality? Why does magical realism so often seem to arise at the same time that nations wrestle with authoritarian states and/or experience civil strife? What distinguishes magical realism from science fiction or fantasy? What distinguishes it from expressions of religious or cosmological belief?

ENGL 6410/7410 Theory and Research in Professional Communication (PhD students sign up for 7410 & will also meet face to face once a week)

Online and Hybrid

Walton, R.

This course will introduce you to many of the major contemporary theories of written discourse that influence research in professional communication. We will explore how communication has been differently defined and circumscribed and why these differences matter to people who study and produce writing in the workplace. You will develop a deep, complex understanding of the field of professional communication by reading seminal works on the history of the field, value of technical and professional communication, ethical and social responsibilities of professional communicators, research questions driving the field, and professional communication skills. We will explore questions such as, “How do practitioners understand their roles in ways both similar to and different from scholars? How do our perceptions of what texts are and how they function in organizational life affect the ways we enact our roles as practitioners and scholars? How are professional communicators implicated within wider systems inside and outside organizations? What kinds of questions do researchers in professional communication ask, and how do those questions affect the outcome of research?” To convey your developing knowledge of the field, you will create a verbal and visual representation of the broader field, as well as an in-depth exploration of a particular topic that is of central concern to the field of professional communication and is relevant to your own interests as a scholar and/or practitioner.

ENGL 6420/7420Usability Studies and Human Factors in Professional Communication: User Experience Design(PhD students sign up for 7420 & will also meet face to face once a week)Online and Hybrid

Hailey, D

I plan to teach effectiveness in instruction and training. Students will examine texts on online training and instruction from an historical perspective, beginning with the early arguments about online instruction but including approaches that have proven affective. One of these approaches will be ProcessPreservation, a specialized heuristic developed by me for capturing critical skills for archiving, quality control, and just-in-time training. For more information, please contact Professor Hailey directly at david.hailey@usu.edu .Course:

ENGL 6470/7470Studies in Specialized Documents(PhD students sign up for 7470 & will also meet face to face once a week)

Online and Hybrid

Hailey, D.

I plan to have the class explore the impact of HTML5 and CSS3 on contemporary publication. The exploration will include examining code in HTML5 and IPUB3, which is HTML5 in eBook format. For more information, please contact Professor Hailey directly at david.hailey@usu.edu .

ENGL 6480/7480Studies in Technology and Writing: Digital Rhetoric and New Media(PhD students sign up for 7480 and will meet face to face once a week)

Colton, J.

This class offers an introduction to the relationships among technology, rhetoric, culture, and writing, with a specific emphasis on digital and “new” media. The emergence of digital composition and new media networks has brought into question the usability of traditional rhetorical concepts. For example, once defined as only the gestures accompanying the speech of a rhetor, delivery now includes the technological medium of expression. We have moved from traditional terms such as “the rhetorical situation” (speaker-audience-exigency-constraints) to posthumanist frameworks interested in rhetorical circulation and velocity, where digital file formatting is considered a rhetorical choice anticipating how text, video, and images will be circulated, sampled, and remixed by others. As researchers of technical communication and rhetoric, we must take into account the important role of these new media and digital writing practices. This course will question assumptions of culturally neutral or value-free narratives of technology, whether celebratory, determinist, or somewhere in between. We will develop critical vocabulary and knowledge of the ethical, historical, political, and social contexts that influence our everyday use of these technologies.

ENGL/HIST 6700Folklore Theory and Methods

McNeill, L.

What do Slender Man, jump rope rhymes, Little Red Riding Hood, bathroom graffiti, Grumpy Cat, and funeral potatoes all have in common? They're all folklore! How is it possible to study so many diverse and awesome things within a single academic field? Take this course and find out. We'll be discussing the history of folklore studies as an academic discipline (an exciting global journey through the fields of anthropology, literature, linguistics, and history), the definition of folklore (definitely not as simple as you might think), and some major theories and approaches to understanding forms of cultural expression that are often overlooked (and undervalued) by other disciplines.

ENGL/HIST 6740Folk Narrative

Siporin, S.

A genre approach to oral literature, focusing on the folktale, legend, ballad, and epic, as well as non-European genres. The methods are: comparative, structural, psychoanalytical, and ethnographic. Plan on significant amounts of reading, writing, listening, and talking.

ENGL 6760/4760Folk Material Culture

Gantt, P.

This class explores the unique worlds of southern material culture and the individuals or groups who create it. It also expands on southern material culture to analyze that of other regions. We will examine questions such as: What differences are there between art and craft? What forms does material culture take? Who are the artists who make it? Under what circumstances is it created? What does it mean to its creators? How does it provide insight into the many cultures of a changing region or nation? How does it signify in the larger culture? How does it relate to our own worlds?

ENGL 6820Practicum in Teaching English

Dethier, B.

This course is designed specifically for graduate instructors teaching English 1010. It focuses on the theory and practice of teaching writing but also prepares graduate instructors for further teaching responsibilities. We schedule it for two class periods, but the second period is usually reserved for outside speakers and special presentations. Participants complete some of the English 1010 assignments as well as a final synthesis paper, and they share some of their best ideas in a half-hour presentation to the class. Required of all new English graduate instructors and must be taken with the pre-semester Orientation.

ENGL 6884Creative Nonfiction: Flash Nonfiction Workshop

Sinor, J.

In this graduate creative writing workshop, we will be focusing on the short form. After studying examples of flash literary nonfiction and exploring the elements of the subgenre, we will spend the majority of our time in writing workshop where students will submit their essays and give and receive feedback. By the end of the semester, students will have produced a chapbook of linked flash nonfiction, bound by theme, inventive in form, and at least twenty-five pages in length. Along the way, we will address formal and informal research, lyric structure, and compression of narrative. For those interested in writing long-form essays, we will consider ways to weave shorter pieces into longer essays, chapters, or even thesis projects.

Summer 2015 Graduate Courses

Course

Instructor

Course Description

ENGL 5400/6470Specialized Documents: Resumes and Online Portfolios

Walton, R.

This workshop will teach you how to represent yourself professionally through resumes, portfolios, and social media. You will learn what hiring managers look for in electronic portfolios, how research on recruiters’ skimming processes can help you optimize your resume, and how to apply best practices in resume and portfolio design. In this workshop, you will develop a well-designed, attractive, and easy-to-skim resume for print and online use. You will also develop or update your professional online presence through a portfolio website. You will leave the workshop with tangible products (including a resume and an online portfolio) as well as a better understanding of how to use social media and visual design strategies to represent yourself professionally. No prior knowledge of web design is required for this class. For more details, contact Rebecca.walton@usu.edu.

ENGL 6470/7470Specialized Documents: Proposal and Grant Development(PhD students sign up for 7470 & will also meet face to face once a week)

Online and Hybrid

McLaughlin, J.

This course will focus on the process of preparing proposals and grants for submission. It will look at broader underlying issues such as the similarities and differences between the two types of submission, fundamental principles of style and organization for maximum customer impact, and common writing pitfalls to avoid. It will place a heavy emphasis on looking at the experiences and recommendations of veteran proposal and grant writers. For more details, contact nuwitaivottsi@yahoo.com.

Sponsored by the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress and the Fife Folklore Archives, Department of English, and Folklore Program Utah State University

Gabbert, L. & Williams, R.

This is an intensive, three week graduate level course offered during the first summer session of 2015. This 3-credit course fulfills the fieldwork requirement (Eng/Hist 6720) for students enrolled in the folklore program. The course is limited to 12 students. The Field School for Cultural Documentation offers hands-on ethnographic training for beginning fieldworkers. Focus is on the documentation of local cultural resources, the preservation of documentary materials, archival collection production, and public presentation. Professionals from the Libraryof Congress and Utah State University will cover such areas as research ethics, interviewing and sound recording techniques, ethnographic observation, and fieldnote writing. Training will also be provided on the archival organization and description of fieldwork materials gathered. Registration is by permission only. For more information, please contact lisa.gabbert@usu.edu and see the following website: https://archives.usu.edu/folklo/fieldschool2015.php.